Chicken Fajitas

So, as simple as this dinner is, I've never made fajitas before. I guess I just wasn't sure of the technique. And actually, now that I think about it, I'm not sure I've ever really eaten fajitas before. These were so good and easy to throw together. I really wanted to make them with a combination of red and green bell peppers, but when red bell peppers are almost $5 a pound, I will stick with green bells. Although I have to admit, I prefer the flavor of red bell pepper over green. If someone could enlighten me as to why red peppers are so much more expensive, I'd appreciate it :-)

Chicken Fajitas

3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
Asian Marinade
2 large bell peppers
1 small yellow onion
vegetable oil

Assemble marinade in a large liquid measuring cup and stir well. Put chicken in a large zip top bag and pour marinade over chicken. Let as much air out of the bag as possible, seal and marinade in refrigerator for at least an hour.

Slice the bell peppers and onions into thin strips and sautee in oil over medium heat until softened. I actually like to sautee them until the onions are starting to caramelize a bit.

Remove chicken from marinade, discarding leftover marinade. Grill chicken on either an indoor or outdoor grill ( I use my George Foreman) until juices run clear. Remove chicken from grill and slice into strips. Serve chicken and vegetables inside warm tortillas.

Basic Blondies

I have made these blondies countless times, but have never blogged them. This recipe was passed on to me by bakingblonde of Bakingblonde's Weblog. She is the queen of the blondies on The Nest's What's Cooking message board. These blondies are my go-to dessert for when we really want something sweet but don't have lots of time. They are so easy to throw together at the last minute, and as much as I love my Kitchen Aid stand mixer, I love when I don't have to get it messy. This is a one bowl dessert that is always a crowd pleaser.

The only issue that I have with this recipe is that it has no leavening agent and they always come out flat and a little raw tasting. Now don't get me wrong, I don't mind the ooey gooey undercooked chocolatiness. They're just a little hard to get out of the pan without squishing them. I think next time I will add a bit of baking powder and see if that does anything.

Basic Blondies

8 tbsp butter, melted
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
pinch of salt
1 cup all purpose flour

Preheat oven to 350 and grease an 8x8 pan. Mix melted butter with brown sugar and beat until smooth (I always just do this in a large mixing bowl with a wooden spoon) Beat in egg and then vanilla. Add salt, stir in flour, and add in any mixins (below)

Pour into prepared pan and bake for 20-25 minutes or until set in the middle. Cool on rack before cutting.

Mix in ideas:
1/2 to 1 cup of chopped, toasted nuts
1/2 to 1 cup chocolate/white chocolate chips
mint/almond/any other extract of your choice in place of the vanilla extract

My favorite mix ins so far were a combination of toffee chips, almonds and dried cranberries. Yum! Tonight I just did about 3/4 cup of chocolate chips though. Rob and Maura like them best tat way :-)

Asian Marinade

I made a really simple dinner tonight of grilled chicken, roasted veggies and brown rice. I have no pictures because I left my camera at my Mom's house last weekend. But the chicken was so delicious, that I had to post about it.

I love Asian inspired marinades and I've used one that is slightly similar to this one for my chicken stir fry. I was actually sad to discard the leftover marinade tonight because it smelled so good. Looking back, I probably could have reduced it in a saucepan on the stove top and turned it into a glaze for the grilled chicken. Next time!

Asian-inspired Marinade (I used this for my grilled chicken tonight, but I'm sure it would be delicious on veggies or even shrimp)

1/4 cup low sodium soy sauce
3 tbsp honey
3 tbsp olive oil
1-2 cloves of garlic, minced
salt and pepper

Combine ingredients in a large liquid measuring cup and whisk briskly with a fork or wire whisk. Add chicken (I used 3 boneless skinless breasts) and marinade ingredients to a large zip top bag and marinade in refrigerator for at least 2 hours. I marinaded mine for more like 5 or 6 hours. The longer the better. Grill or bake, as desired.

So easy and so delicious! I think I may use the leftover chicken in a salad tomorrow...

Chicken Cacciatore...I think??

When I came up with the idea for this meal, I really wasn't thinking of it as Chicken Cacciatore. But the more I thought about it the more I realized that that's pretty much what this is. I don't have onions or bell peppers in mine, which are 2 things you'd usually find in Chicken Cacciatore. But otherwise, it's pretty much the same. I actually can't take all the credit for coming up with this idea. Most of the credit has to go to my wonderful husband. Last week I made a very simple pasta dish that I watched Giada make on one of her Everyday Italian shows on The Food Network. We all loved it and Rob could not stop raving about it. He decided that it would be even better with chicken. So I started brainstorming and came up with what I guess is my own version of Chicken Cacciatore. It was delicious and I cannot wait to have the leftovers for lunch tomorrow.

Chicken Cacciatore, Kayte-style :)

3 boneless skinless chicken breasts, pounded thin or butterflied
1/4 cup flour
2 tbsp olive oil
1/4 cup chicken or vegetable broth
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 pints grape or cherry tomatoes, halved
1/2 cup baby portabella mushrooms, sliced
oregano
basil
salt and pepper

Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Season chicken with salt and pepper and dredge lightly in flour. Cook in pan until browned on both sides, about 4-5 minutes per side. Remove chicken from pan and cover.

Add broth and garlic to pan. Scrape brown bits off of bottom of pan. Add tomatoes and cook until softened. After the tomatoes have softened a bit, smash them with the back of a fork, creating a chunky tomato sauce. Add mushrooms and simmer for 5 minutes. Add chicken back to skillet, season with herbs and salt and pepper, cover and simmer over low-medium heat about 20 minutes. Serve over whole wheat pasta.

Cornmeal Crusted Chicken

I realize that Elly just made this last night. And I feel like a complete copycat. But one of my favorite teachers from when I was little always told me that "copying is a compliment." So take it as a compliment Elly, that I thought your dinner looked so wonderful last night that I just HAD to make it tonight :-)

Anyway, I did mine a little differently than Elly did, although the inspiration came solely from her delicious looking concoction from last night. I did not stuff my chicken with anything. In the kosher world, mixing chicken (or meat of any kind) with cheese (or dairy of any kind) is a big no-no. I may have mentioned that once or twice before, but I just wanted to clarify just in case. So stuffing my chicken with cheese is pretty much out of the question. Coating it in cornmeal, on the other hand, is completely ok, so I just stuck with that. I also didn't add the peppers. For one, I don't really like spicy peppers too much. Also, we had no peppers on hand. So I just added a good dose of paprika and chili powder to my cornmeal before tossing my chicken in it.

I also wanted to clarify one other thing. Eggs are not dairy. I know, I know. I thought they were too. But they're not. Dairy products are anything that consists of milk. So butter, cream, milk (duh), cheese...those kinds of things. Those are all dairy and you will not find any of them in my meat dishes. I sometimes feel limited because I cannot combine these things in my kitchen and so many wonderful recipes that I've come across call for them. But honestly, I love being kosher and I am more than willing to make the sacrifice. Also, there are always substitutions that cane be made. For example, dairy free margarine comes in handy when making mashed potatoes that will be eaten with meat. Or when making a dessert that will be eaten after a meat meal. Ok, I think I've rambled long enough. I just wanted to give those of you who may not know much about the kosher lifestyle a glimpse into what goes into keeping kosher. Onto the chicken.

3 boneless skinless chicken breasts
1 egg, beaten
1/3 cup cornmeal
salt
pepper
paprika
chili powder

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line a baking sheet with foil and spray with cooking spray.

Coat chicken in egg and then toss in cornmeal mixture. Place on prepared baking sheet and spray chicken with cooking spray. Bake for 20-30 minutes or until juices run clear.

This was such an easy and delicious dinner. I know I'll be making this many many times again! Thanks for another winner Elly :-)

(sorry for the lack of pictures. i took one and it turned out teeny tiny. i don't know what's going on with my camera.)

Chicken Veggie Stir Fry Revisited

I've blogged a chicken vegetable stir fry I've tried in the past. The picture looked awful and I didn't really like the outcome. So when I made a chicken veggie stir fry tonight that everyone loved, I knew I had to come back and blog this one. I tried some things I haven't done with my stir fry before that I know made a huge difference.

First of all, I marinated the chicken before cooking it. I usually just season with salt and pepper and add to the skillet. I think this is a huge reason why I have not liked my stir fry in the past. The marinade added so much flavor and really helped the meat retain it's moisture. I also added a spice that I don't use very often; cumin. I've not been a huge fan of cumin in the past. But I've been incorporating it into some meals recently so I decided to give it a shot. It really added a ton of flavor to the dish and I think I'll never made stir fry without it. I did not get any pictures of this meal. I have a hard time taking pics of my food as it is, and this one just didn't look like it would photograph well.

Chicken Vegetable Stir Fry

Ingredients:
3 boneless skinless chicken breasts
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
1 large green bell pepper, sliced
1 medium zucchini squash, cut into chunks
7-8 baby bella mushrooms, sliced thick
1-2 tsp cornstarch
1-2 tsp canola oil
1/4 cup vegetable broth (chicken broth could certainly be substituted here; I just didn't have any on hand tonight)

Marinade ingredients:
1/4 cup low sodium soy sauce
1/4 cup olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cumin
salt and pepper

Directions:
Combine marinade ingredients in a large liquid measuring cup and stir briskly with a fork. Add chicken and marinade to large zip top bag and marinade in fridge 2 hours.

Heat oil in a large skillet and add vegetables. Cook over medium-high heat until tender. Remove from skillet and set aside.

Remove chicken from bag and cut chicken into 1/2 inch pieces, reserving marinade. Cook chicken in skillet until no longer pink. Add cornstarch to marinade and stir briskly with fork until completely incorporated. Add marinade and broth to skillet and cook over medium heat until bubbly and thickened; approximately 15 minutes.

Add veggies back to skillet and cook just until heated through. Serve over rice, if desired.

Serves 4

Happy Chanukah!

I just love Chanukah. I love lighting the candles with my family and singing the songs. It's such a wonderful feeling. I also love Chanukah because I get to make latkes. Now, I know I could make latkes more often if I didn't fry them in oil. But they're just so good that way I can't imagine baking them in the oven. So every year I wait until Chanukah comes around and I grate potatoes and onions for almost 8 straight days.

I also wanted to make a really special meal to go along with the latkes. I decided to roast a whole chicken. This is about the 3rd or 4th time I've done this and I love it more and more every time. It's such a wonderful, comforting meal and it went really well with the latkes.

We also had parsnips for the first time last night. I roasted them in the pan with the chicken and they were really yummy! For those of you who maybe haven't had them before, they taste kind of like a combination of a carrot and a sweet potato. I really liked them and I think I will be adding them to the menu more often (despite the fact that Rob and Maura did not like them very much.)


Herb Roasted Chicken
1 3-4lb chicken
olive oil
1/2 a lemon
3-4 sprigs fresh thyme, chopped and divided
4 or 5 leaves of fresh sage
dried basil
salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 450. Rinse chicken inside and out and pat dry. Place in roasting pan with a rack, breast side up. Rub with olive oil, salt and pepper and half of the herbs. Fill cavity with lemon, salt and pepper and the remaining herbs. Cover with foil. Roast for 20 minutes at 450. Decrease oven temp to 350 and remove foil. Roast for another 50-60 minutes, or until a meat thermometer reads 180 at the thickest part of the thigh. Let rest for 15 minutes before carving.

I used the drippings in the pan to make a pan gravy. I simply put my roasting pan across 2 of my stovetop burners and heated it. Then, I deglazed with some homemade chicken stock (you could also use part white wine here, but I didn't have any) Add about a tbsp or so of flour and whisk until thickened.

Not so Spicy Honey-Brushed Chicken

I have been wanting to try Cooking Light's Spicy Honey-Brushed Chicken Thighs for some time now. The recipe gets rave reviews on The Nest's What's Cooking message board and I trust those ladies. So I knew it would probably be really good. But I was scared. See, I don't really like spicy food. Actually, that's not true. For a long time I didn't like spicier foods. Now that I'm trying to branch out and try more new things, I'm finding that I'm building up a pretty decent tolerance for spicy stuff. Still. I was scared. A recipe with Spicy right in the title didn't really sound like something I would be able to handle. But I read the recipe a little closer and saw that I could very easily control the amount of heat. So I gave it a try.

I did not use boneless skinless chicken thighs because I didn't have any. Instead, I used chicken leg quarters, but I did remove the skin. This recipe was so incredible. I loved the smoky flavor. It was really wonderful. I have to say that I didn't really measure the spices very well. So I'm not going to type up the recipe the way I made it because I'm not really sure what I did :-) I will link to the original recipe here though. What I tried to do was cut the spicy spices in half (cumin, chili powder) and add more of the smoky stuff (paprika) Also, I didn't have any ground red pepper, so I just used my black peppercorns in my pepper mill. It was not spicy at all! I think next time (and there will be a next time!) I will make it just as the recipe says and see what happens.

Chicken in Mushroom Pan Sauce

Another recipe inspired by Elly! Actually, I first saw the recipe that inspired this meal on Ashley's blog, Delish. It looked so yummy, and since I had a bunch of mushrooms left from when I made my soup, I decided to do a mushroom sauce instead of an herb sauce. I also did not use wine because I was cooking for my daughter as well and I guess I felt more comfortable skipping the wine altogether and just used broth. It was so tasty and comforting. I also made mashed potatoes for the first time in a long time. Its kind of hard for me to make mashed potatoes, because the meals that they go with are usually meat meals. And since we're kosher, that would mean not using butter or milk or cream in my mashed potatoes. And I was pretty sure, until tonight, that you just can't have good mashed potatoes without all those things. Well, I will say that they are certainly better with butter and milk and cream, etc. BUT. My mashed potatoes were very good tonight.

Chicken in Mushroom Pan Sauce

2 boneless skinless chicken breasts, sliced horizontally or pounded thin (I always slice mine)
flour for dredging
salt and pepper
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1 tbsp olive oil
1/2-3/4 cup chicken broth (I used part homemade stock, part store-bought broth)
3 ozs sliced baby portabella mushrooms
3 cloves of garlic, minced

Add flour, salt and pepper, and oregano to a shallow dish. Mix together and dredge the chicken in the flour. Add oil to a skillet and heat. Cook chicken in skillet, about 4 minutes on each side, until done. Set aside and keep warm. Add mushrooms to pan and cook until tender, about 2-3 minutes. Add garlic and cook another minute or so. Add broth and cook until reduced and thickened; about 5-7 minutes. Serve sauce over chicken and potatoes.

Non-dairy Garlic Mashed Potatoes

4 small-medium yukon gold potatoes
2-3 cloves smashed garlic
chicken broth
2 tbsp non-dairy margarine

Boil potatoes with garlic cloves. Drain and smash with a fork. Add broth and margarine and mix until smooth and margarine is melted.

Chicken Vegetable Mushroom Soup

So the first thing I did with my homemade stock was make soup! It was soooo cold and rainy here last week and it was perfect weather for homemade soup. I had also been inspired by all the delicious soups and stews on Elly's blog. I have been eying them and drooling over them for some time and was so happy to be able to make my own. I definitely did not use a recipe. Instead, I just looked over all of Elly's recipes and used parts of them in mine.

Chicken Vegetable Mushroom Soup

2 boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite sized pieces
1 tbsp olive oil
8-9 cups chicken broth (I used homemade stock)
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
5 ozs sliced baby portabella mushrooms
1 large carrot, cut into bite size chunks
dried oregano
dried thyme
salt and pepper to taste

In a large Dutch Oven, heat oil and cook chicken until almost done. Remove chicken and set aside. Add onion to the pan and simmer for 2-3 minutes, until softened. Add garlic and cook for another minute, until fragrant. Add stock and all other ingredients, except chicken and mushrooms, and bring to a boil. Cover and simmer for 30-40 minutes. Add chicken and mushrooms, cover and simmer for another 30 minutes. Enjoy!

Baked Teriyaki Chicken

I finally made something blogworthy last night. I haven't been cooking much lately, due to some stuff going on at home, so I was excited to get back in the kitchen and try something new. I had saved Amber's recipe for Teriyaki Chicken that she adapted from allrecipes, but never got around to making it. So I decided to give it a go last night, knowing I had all the ingredients I needed. We were not disappointed. Teriyaki chicken is one of my daughter's favorite dishes, and she was thrilled when she heard I was making it. She had 2 pieces! We all loved it and I served it with a side of white rice cooked in chicken broth (yum!) I wasn't able to get any pictures because my camera batteries were dead, but I'm sure I'll be making this again soon, so I'll be sure to come back and update with a picture!

Baked Teriyaki Chicken (source: Amber's Delectable Delights original source: allrecipes.com)

Ingredients:
1 tbsp cornstarch
1 tbsp cold water
1/3 cup white sugar
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup cider vinegar
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
4-6 boneless skinless chicken breasts (I used 4)

Directions:
In a small saucepan over low heat, combine all ingredients except chicken. Let simmer, stirring frequently, until sauce thickens and bubbles. Let sauce cool.

Pour cooled sauce into bottom of greased 9x13 casserole dish. Coat chicken in sauce and marinade in pan in the fridge for atleast an hour.

Preheat oven to 375. Bake in preheated oven for 30 minutes or until internal temp is 165 degrees. Brush chicken with sauce every 10 minutes during cooking.

Herb Roasted Chicken

Wednesday night's dinner was easy and delicious. It was a sort of variation on a recipe i've made before. I took 3 split chicken breasts (bone in, a little bit of skin on) and sprayed them with olive oil. Then I rubbed them with some salt and pepper, Italian seasoning, basil, oregano and thyme. I like my chicken really herb-y :-) Then I sprayed a 13x9 pan with olive oil and laid the chicken breasts in the pan. I poured in enough vegetable broth (you could use chicken broth, but I didn't have any last night) to cover the bottom of the pan. Then, I roasted them at 350 degrees for about an hour, basting once or twice. I also had to add more vegetable broth halfway through. The chicken came out moist and delicious and I will definitely be making it this way again soon. I served it with steamed corn and roasted zucchini.

Snap, Crackle, Pop

Chicken fingers!! When I decided to make chicken fingers tonight, I decided to try something new. I have always used bread crumbs to bread my chicken, but my Dad always used cereal, so I decided to give that a shot. And I though Rice Krispies would be perfect. Partly because I had some, but partly because they're so crunchy. It worked out wonderfully and I can honestly say I don't think I'll be using breadcrumbs to bread my chicken ever again. Here's how I did it:

Kayte's Chicken Fingers (serves 3-4)
Ingredients
3 boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into nuggets or strips
1/2 cup flour
2 eggs, beaten
2 cups Rice Krispies cereal, crushed
1/4 cup Canola oil

Heat oil in skillet over medium heat. Season chicken pieces with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Dredge strips or nuggets in flour, coat with egg, then coat in crushed Rice Krispies (I crushed mine in a gallon sized freezer bag and used my hands). Add chicken pieces to pan and cook, flipping once, about 5-7 minutes per side. If your skillet isn't big enough to fit all of the chicken (mine wasn't) keep the cooked chicken pieces in the oven to keep them warm. I laid mine out on a plate covered with a paper towel to soak up some of the oil.

I served the chicken with oven fries and roasted broccoli.

Oven Fries (serves 3-4)
2 medium sized Yukon Gold potatoes
olive oil cooking spray
salt and pepper to taste

Cut potatoes into strips. Spray a baking sheet with cooking spray and lay the potato strips out in a single layer. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and spray with cooking spray. Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 20-25 minutes, flipping halfway through so that they cook evenly.

Roasting broccoli is done pretty much the same way as the fries, except the broccoli only has to roast for about 10-15 minutes.

Breaded chicken in Mushroom Sauce

I had such a hard time coming up with a good idea for dinner tonight. I knew I had some boneless skinless chicken breasts thawing, but I couldn't think of anything yummy to make. So my good friend Michelle helped me brainstorm. First, she suggested fajitas, which I've never made, but they sounded great. Only problem was, I didn't have most of what I'd need to make them. And I did not feel like going to the store. So then we started talking about sauteeing them on the stove top and Michelle told me all about how she makes them. And I had everything I needed (since it doesn't require many ingredients) so I decided to go for it.

The result was a dinner that everyone loved. Maura said "this is the best chicken you've ever made!" Which was really sweet of her to say, but I did remind her that she says that a lot :-) She's not hard to please. Here's the "recipe" the way I made it, using Michelle's instructions.

Michelle's Breaded Chicken in Mushroom Sauce (source: Michelle)
3 boneless skinless chicken breasts, pounded thin or sliced in half (I always slice mine down the center to make 2 separate pieces)
~2 tbsp olive oil
flour
mushrooms (I used pre-sliced baby bellas)
vegetable broth

Heat a nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add oil. Dredge both sides of chicken in flour. Add to pan and brown on both sides; approximately 3-4 minutes per side. Add mushrooms and cook through, about 3 minutes. Add vegetable broth (I did not measure the broth at all, but I'm guessing I used 1/2 cup or so) Cook over medium heat until sauce is reduced and thickened, about 10 minutes.

I served this with roasted yukon gold potatoes and garlic green beans. The green beans were really simple. I just threw some frozen green beans into a pan sprayed with olive oil. I also added 1 clove of garlic, minced finely. I cooked them over a medium heat for about 5-7 minutes, until they were cooked through. My mom has asked for an actual recipe for my roasted potatoes, so here it is

Roasted potatoes (serves 3-4 people)
3-4 medium potatoes (I use either Yukon Gold or Red potatoes)
olive oil spray
salt and pepper
Italian Seasoning

Preheat oven to 425. Cut potatoes into chunks. Spray baking sheet with olive oil and spread potatoes on baking sheet in a single layer. Sprinkle with salt, pepper and Italian seasoning (the options are really endless here as far as what you season the potatoes with. I have used garlic and basil, or rosemary. It's really all about what you want to use) Spray potatoes with olive oil and bake in preheated oven for 30-40 minutes, flipping halfway through.

Oh Kitchen, how I missed thee!!

I missed my kitchen so much while I was on vacation. I got to cook dinner for everyone (meaning about 24 people) only once. It was quite the experience. But I loved it. I made shredded BBQ chicken, breaded zucchini, and corn on the cob. The whole dinner was a huge hit. It was a ton of work though. Imagine shredding enough chicken for 24 people. Not a quick meal! But anyway, I missed my kitchen and did not get any chances to bake at all.

So tonight, I got back in the kitchen and threw together a dinner with what I had on hand. I made some BBQ chicken in the oven and roasted some potatoes. I was going to make a veggie side, like roasted zucchini. But I forgot to pick up veggies at the store yesterday, and all the veggies leftover from before we left for vacation looked questionable. So no veggies with dinner tonight.

For the BBQ chicken, I just let the chicken pieces soak/marinade in some BBQ sauce for about 15 minutes(Hunts' Hickory and Brown Sugar...sooooo good!) I lined a baking sheet with foil, placed the chicken pieces on the baking sheet and baked them at 425 for about 25 minutes. I took them out about basted them, then put then back in the oven for another 15 minutes, basting with the sauce one more time before they were done cooking. It was super easy and super yummy.

To roast the potatoes, I just cut them into chunks, laid them on a baking sheet (which i sprayed with olive oil first), sprayed the potatoes with olive oil, and then sprinkled some salt, pepper, and Italian seasoning on them. I threw the potatoes in the oven at the same time as the chicken, and they were done before the chicken, so i probably should have waited.

I also decided to bake tonight, since I haven't baked in over a week, and I loooove to bake. Also, tomorrow is Maura's first day of 3rd grade and I wanted to bake some goodies for her to have in her lunches for her first week of school. I used a recipe I have used over and over again for Chocolate Chocolate Chip cookies. But I made it differently. This time I used Dark Chocolate cocoa powder and White Chocolate Chips. This is by far my favorite cookie recipe. I am not a huge fan of white chocolate, so I was hesitant to try it this way. They were very tasty, but next time I will stick to other add-ins. I have made them with semisweet chips, and with chopped up dark chocolate and milk chocolate bars. The original recipe comes from foodnetwork.com and can be found here.

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies
2 1/4 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 sticks butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 large eggs, beaten
1 tablespoon vanilla
1/2 cup Hershey's Special Dark cocoa
2 cups white chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a bowl stir together flour, salt, and baking soda. In another large bowl stir together butter, both sugars, eggs, vanilla and cocoa. Gradually stir flour mixture into butter mixture and mix until combined. Add white chocolate chips and stir to distribute evenly.
For cookies: Drop dough by tablespoonfuls onto greased baking sheets and bake about 10 minutes. Cool on a baking rack.
For bars: Pat dough into a greased 9 inch square baking pan and bake 20 to 25 minutes. Cut into squares when cooled

Oh, and here's a picture of the beach for you :-) We went to Bethany Beach, Delaware last week and had a blast with my entire family.

BBQ chicken and sweet potatoes

I have made pulled BBQ chicken in the crockpot before. But while surfing The Nest's What's Cooking Message Board, I learned that there is a different way to do it without a crockpot. And since I hate my crockpot, I was excited to learn all about it. The always brilliant Jen of Jen's Culinary Adventures told me how you can boil the chicken in broth and then go from there. I thought it sounded like a great idea so I decided to give it a whirl. Here is what I did, per Jen's instructions, and a little help from another nestie, Mollie.

I had some chicken pieces from a whole chicken. So I took a breast, thigh and leg, all with the bone in a skin on. I took the skin off and boiled them with the bones still in, in a combo of chicken and vegetable broth until they chicken was cooked through. I removed the chicken from the pot, drained the broth from the pot, and took the meat off the bones. I added the meat back to the pot and shredded it with 2 forks. Then, I added enough barbecue sauce to coat all the meat. I have, until now, not found my favorite barbecue sauce. I am limited as to which brands I can buy, since we keep kosher. So I tried Hunt's Hickory Smoke sauce and it was awesome! It's my new fave. Although I am still dying to try Sweet Baby Ray's at some point in my life. Anyway,I just heated the sauce and chicken up and served on hamburger buns.

Tonight was also a first for me. I have eaten and loved sweet potatoes my entire life. but I have only ever had them baked or mashed. And I hardly ever make them at home. But I have been hearing so much about oven roasted sweet potatoes that I just had to try them, so I picked up some sweet taters at the store today. I discovered that cubing a sweet potato is a lot harder than cubing a yukon gold. I almost really hurt myself! Until a fellow nestie told me that popping it in the microwave might help soften it up. It did the trick and we had delicious roasted sweet potatoes with our barbecue chicken.

Unfortunately, I was not able to get a good picture of dinner tonight. I realize that a food blog post without a picture can be a little disappointing, but trust me, the pictures I got would not have made much of a difference :-)

Finally! Some healthy food!

I wanted to cook something healthy for dinner tonight because I feel like I've gotten away from the healthy lifestyle I had been trying to get myself into. With the weekend at Hershey Park, and all the other birthday celebrations, this week has been full of unhealthy foods. I knew I had some chicken breasts in the freezer, so I took those out this morning and decided to do a chicken and veggie stir fry. I had zucchinis and onions and garlic and green peppers. So I used all of them up. This is the first time I have made a stir fry without soy sauce and I did not miss it. I served it with basmati rice and it was delicious.

Chicken Veggie Stir Fry
~2 tbsps olive oil
1 small yellow onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
3 boneless skinless chicken breasts, cubed
2 green peppers, cut into small strips
2 medium zucchini, chopped
salt and pepper
1 chicken (or beef) bullion cube

Heat oil in a large saute pan or wok. Add garlic and onion and cook until tender, about 2 minutes. Add chicken and saute until almost done. Add veggies and crumbled bullion cube and stir fry until done. Serve over rice of your choice!

Happy Birthday Maura!

Maura turned 8 years old today! We took her to Hershey Park over the weekend and did some celebrating and had lots of fun there. And tonight, my mom and my brother and sister came over and we had a really nice dinner and really yummy cake. Maura's new favorite meal is the Caramelized Baked Chicken from allrecipes.com. This is the first recipe in my blog and definitely one of the best chicken dishes I have ever made. So she requested it for her birthday dinner. It was delicious and everyone loved it. I think my brother had about 4 pieces. He's a big eater!

I made Hershey's "Perfectly Chocolate" Chocolate Cake and let me tell you...it was perfect! It was seriously the best chocolate cake I have ever had. It was rich and moist and "perfectly chocolate" I can't say enough about it. I made a frosting that I found on allrecipes that uses Cool Whip and vanilla pudding mix. It was much lighter than most traditional frostings, but still very sweet and good. I will say that next time I think I will stick with a buttercream icing. I just like a richer, denser frosting. But the frosting tasted wonderful and the cake was amazing. It was my first attempt at cake decorating, so it's a little droopy. But I did the best I could and I think it turned out pretty well! So here are the recipes for the cake and frosting.

Hershey's "Perfectly Chocolate" Chocolate Cake (source: hersheys.com)
Ingredients:

• 2 cups sugar
• 1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup HERSHEY'S Cocoa
• 1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup milk
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 cup boiling water
• "PERFECTLY CHOCOLATE" CHOCOLATE FROSTING(recipe follows)

Directions:
1. Heat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour two 9-inch round baking pans.

2. Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in large bowl. Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla; beat on medium speed of mixer 2 minutes. Stir in boiling water (batter will be thin). Pour batter into prepared pans.

3. Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks. Cool completely. Frost with "PERFECTLY CHOCOLATE" CHOCOLATE FROSTING. 10 to 12 servings.

VARIATIONS:
ONE-PAN CAKE: Grease and flour 13x9x2-inch baking pan. Heat oven to 350° F. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake 35 to 40 minutes. Cool completely. Frost.

THREE LAYER CAKE: Grease and flour three 8-inch round baking pans. Heat oven to 350°F. Pour batter into prepared pans. Bake 30 to 35 minutes. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks. Cool completely. Frost.

BUNDT CAKE: Grease and flour 12-cup Bundt pan. Heat oven to 350°F. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake 50 to 55 minutes. Cool 15 minutes; remove from pan to wire rack. Cool completely. Frost.

CUPCAKES: Line muffin cups (2-1/2 inches in diameter) with paper bake cups. Heat oven to 350°F. Fill cups 2/3 full with batter. Bake 22 to 25 minutes. Cool completely. Frost. About 30 cupcakes.
Cool Whipped Frosting
Ingredients
1 8 ounce container frozen whipped topping, thawed
1 3.4 ounce package instant vanilla pudding mix
1 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla extract

Directions
In a medium bowl, combine pudding mix with milk and vanilla. Mix until smooth. Gently fold in whipped topping until no streaks remain. Spread evenly over cake.

Everything was wonderful tonight and Maura had a great time. I'm so glad that my family could come and share everything with us tonight. It made the night extra special for all of us. My dad was sorely missed. This is Maura's first birthday without him and that is very hard. So I'm gonna put a picture of him in here too, cause I know he was here in spirit! (it's a very old picture, but it really captures his wonderful, funny personality :) )

Oh! And this post would not be complete without a picture of the birthday girl herself! I couldn't get a picture of her tonight because she just wouldn't stand still long enough and my phone camera isn't good at action shots. So this is the best I can do!

BBQ Chicken, Potatoes, and Green Beans

BBQ Chicken is one of my favorite foods. I love it on the grill and could eat it a couple of times a week and not complain. Living in an apartment, unfortunately, means that I do not have an outdoor grill. I do have a George Foreman Grill, but it's such a pain to clean and I really didn't feel like dealing with it. So I decided to just try it in a skillet on the stove top. I've made bbq chicken this way before, except the last time I used boneless skinless breasts and cut them into chunks and made BBQ chicken wraps. This time, I used chicken leg quarters. I use this kind of chicken a lot lately because it is very in expensive (kosher meat is ridiculous sometimes) and it tastes really yummy. I took the quarters and separated the leg from the thigh to make it easier to fit into my little skillet. I "marinaded" the chicken pieces in BBQ sauce for about an hour before cooking. I like to do this because I like my chicken really saucy and that helps it hold onto some of the sauce and the flavor. I have to confess here that I used bbq sauce from a jar. I just used Kraft Original Barbecue Sauce. It was delicious! I sprayed the skillet with some olive oil spray, and cooked the chicken pieces over a medium flame for about 35-40 minutes. I basted with more sauce on each side a couple of times during cooking. It was really good and easy and everyone here loved it.


For the potatoes, I took 3 medium-large red potatoes and cut them into relatively small pieces. I laid them on a baking sheet coated with olive oil spray and sprayed them with the oil. I sprinkled salt and pepper and chopped rosemary leaves on them and roasted them at about 400 degrees for about 40 minutes. They were brown and crispy and delicious.

I tried something new with my green beans, and I won't be making them this way again. I sauteed them in olive oil spray and garlic. That, on it's own, probably would have been fine. But I also squeezed some lemon juice on them and that did not taste right to me. Rob liked them though, so that's a big success!

Oh, and I usually leave the skin on the chicken when I cook this type of chicken because I love it so much. But I decided that it was time for me to start taking it off. And I did not miss it at all! The sauce got cooked right into the meat and tasted wonderful!

A week without Maura!

So, my aunt took my daughter away from me for a whole week. She is out of town visiting her best friend (my cousin) I miss her terribly and the week cannot go by fast enough. Rob and I have decided that this would be a great week to make some meals that Maura might not like. I have heard so many fantastic things about Giada's Balsamic Chicken on the What's Cooking board, and this seemed like something Maura might not be into. Although, I think I may be wrong about that. I think she would absolutely love this meal! Anyway, I fully intended to try it quite a while ago. I bought some balsamic vinegar just for the occasion. And then I didn't make it...so I used the balsamic for something else! Then, my good friend Steph (better known as skidunks) said she was making this the other day, and that inspired me to actually make it! It was so good and not as hard to make as I thought it would be. I think the only thing I will do differently next time is marinade it longer. Like all day or something. I marinaded for about 2 1/2 hours and it was really good. But I think all day would make it even better. Oh, and since I didn't use the type of chicken Giada calls for in her recipe, I would probably make less of the marinade. We had a ton leftover and throwing it out makes me feel wasteful. Anyway, my changes have been made in italics.

Balsamic Chicken Drumettes (source WC nesties: original source Giada De Laurentiis)

1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup soy sauce
5 sprigs of rosemary
5 garlic cloves, halved
10 to 12 chicken drumsticks (I used 3 chicken leg quarters)
2 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds (I left these out because I didn't have any)
1/4 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley (again, I left this out because I didn't have any)

Combine the balsamic, honey, brown sugar, soy sauce (I used less sodium soy sauce), rosemary sprigs, and garlic cloves, in a large, re-sealable plastic bag (I was clumsy and let go of the bag while getting the marinade ready and spilled it everywhere. so be careful!). Shake and squeeze the contents of the bag to dissolve the honey and the brown sugar. Add the chicken drumsticks (or leg quarters...or whatever kind of chicken you feel like using) to the bag and seal with as little air as possible in the bag. Place in the refrigerator and marinate for 2 hours.

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.

Place the chicken drumsticks on a foil-lined baking sheet. Bake until the skin is caramelized and very dark in spots, about 30 to 35 minutes.

Meanwhile, place the marinade in a small saucepan. Bring the marinade to a boil (in order to kill bacteria). Reduce the heat to simmer and cook over low heat until thick, about 15 minutes. Reserve.

Use a pastry brush to brush some of the cooked marinade on the cooked chicken. Place the chicken on a serving platter. Sprinkle with the sesame seeds and the chopped parsley.

I served this with oven roasted red potatoes. I tossed the potatoes, which I cut into eights, in some olive oil, salt and pepper, and rosemary. They were fantastic. I cooked them in the oven for the same amount of time as the chicken. They were a little brown on the outside, but I like them that way :-)

I also sauteed some zucchini in some olive oil and one minced garlic clove. Oh, and salt and pepper of course. They are soo good this way. I normally roast them, but have tried sauteeing them and it gives them such a different flavor. Rob really likes them this way and even went back for seconds of the zucchini. Anyone who knows my husband, knows this is extremely strange, especially since he took seconds of the zucchini before he took seconds of the meat or potatoes!